


Taken

by btw_small_town_nerd



Series: Brainia One Shots and Short Stories [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24706153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/btw_small_town_nerd/pseuds/btw_small_town_nerd
Summary: Set just after 5x10. Dreamer is taken hostage in an attempt to blackmail Supergirl. Brainy is desperate to get her back.
Relationships: Querl Dox/Nia Nal
Series: Brainia One Shots and Short Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786144
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Taken

If he was being honest, Brainy was only working at around 85% of his capacity. This was highly unusual for him but he had been distracted all morning, too busy trying not to think about the look of Nia’s face as he broke her heart just a few days before. 

It made him feel sick to think of how happy she had been for him; how supportive. And he had just thrown it all back in her face, knowing how much it would hurt her.

But he couldn’t take it back now, it was necessary to keep her safe. And he would do anything to keep her safe. Even if that meant working with Lex Luthor of all people. 

He knew there was a chance that none of them would forgive him once it was all over, but it was worth it, if it meant saving the world. He hoped that, if they all survived, they would see that one day.

Kara had been wary of him ever since the break up, sometimes glancing at him with an equally frustrated and confused expression. He knew she had been spending a lot of time with Nia and guessed that she was probably angry at him, for giving no explanation, for breaking the heart of one of her best friends. He figured she had every right.

A loud beeping coming from the screen in front of him drew his focus. Kara’s distress signal. He felt Alex come up next to him. “What’s going on?” she asked. 

Brainy shook his head. It made no sense. The signal was coming from J’onn’s apartment but surrounding security cameras hadn’t picked up anything out of the ordinary. “Okay suit up. We’re leaving ASAP.” He nodded his assent. 

However before he had even left his chair Kara flew in. Even before she landed Brainy thought her movements looked frantic; he didn’t miss the worry in her expression. 

“It’s Dreamer. She’s been taken, and we can’t find her.” Brainy swore he felt time slow down. His blood ran cold. It didn’t make any sense, he had checked on Nia just hours ago. She had had the day off so she was patrolling with J’onn for the day. They had gone for a coffee before starting. That had only been hours ago. 

“What do you mean? Who’s taken her?” Alex asked.

“We don’t know. J’onn said some man came up to ask him for directions and then knocked him out. When he woke up Nia was gone. Her tracker’s been disabled and I can’t find her.”

Brainy hurried to check, but sure enough Nia’s tracker had been diabled 17 minutes ago. How had he not noticed that before now? His mind struggled to scramble over the fact that Nia had been taken, that she was in danger.

“Where’s J'onn, is he okay?” Alex asked. “Does he remember what the attacker looked like?” 

“He’s okay. He stayed back to try and track her psychically. And no, he can’t really remember, he was wearing a hoodie and a cap. Never got a good look at his face.” 

Brainy swore. “Dreamer has no enemies in her own right. Therefore there is an 89% chance that this is an attack with anti-alien motives. Therefore with a 73% chance that they are targeting her to get to Supergirl. I expect they will make contact within the hour.” 

His voice had sounded detached, as logical and pragmatic as if he had been talking about a stranger but inside his mind he was reeling. Anti-alien extremists were volatile at best, they had little regard for alien life and would not hesitate to hurt or even kill her. 

Brainy was typing as fast as he could, scanning security camera footage, monitoring anti-alien extremist websites, doing anything he thought could help but it was no use. Whoever had taken Nia was good, too good to be boasting about it on the internet and too good to be caught on camera. 

He could feel Kara pacing behind him and Alex hovering over his shoulder, eyes trained on the screen presumably to ensure he hadn’t missed anything. As if he would, he knew he could never make a mistake, not with Nia’s life literally hanging in the balance.

Brainy’s internal clock was never wrong but when the kidnapper made contact 48 minutes later he could have sworn they had been waiting hours. The file had been sent to Alex’s DEO email; the one that no one outside the DEO was supposed to know about. It contained a single video labelled ‘Show this to Supergirl’. 

“Hello Supergirl.” The first thing Brainy noticed was how sleazy his voice sounded, the second being that he was wearing a mask, concealing his identity. 

“I think I have something of yours.” The camera panned out to show Dreamer, tied to a chair in the middle of what appeared to be a warehouse. Brainy felt almost physical pain as he saw the terror in her eyes, the desperation of which she was trying to free herself. 

“She’s quite feisty. Certainly made it quite tricky to get her down here but I think it all worked out okay in the end.” The nonchalant tone of his voice was really starting to piss Brainy off.

“But now down to business. Your friend here is, simply put, an abomination. People like you, and her, need to be exposed. You can’t just keep living among us as if you belong here because you do not. Therefore, in order to save your friend, I want you to reveal your secret identity to me so you can stop pretending you’re one of us, but then flying round whenever you feel like it.”

Nia’s eyes widened at his speech. “Why are you doing this? Supergirl helps people, she helps humans. She isn’t dangerous.” 

Brainy could only watch helplessly as the man strode over to Nia and picked up a baseball bat before striking her hard in the ribs. She sagged forward, wheezing and spluttering as he struck again. 

He then grabbed her hair, forcing her head up and punching her in the face. Brainy felt his rage reach dangerous heights as blood spurted from her nose while she gasped for air. 

Brainy didn’t know what to do with himself. All he wanted was for him to stop hurting her. He would have gladly taken her place, would have done anything to make her safe again. But he was stuck there, knowing that the video was pre recorded, so no matter what he did he could not stop any of it.

“Right now that you’ve seen a little bit of what I can do I hope I can convince you to take me seriously. You will tell me your identity,” he paused to force Nia’s head up to face the camera, “or this one dies, slowly.” 

“No, Supergirl. Please don’t do it. Please don’t…” Nia was cut off by the man striking her temple hard enough to knock her unconscious. Brainy felt his hands begin to shake and tears gather in his eyes, never before had he felt so helpless.

“Meet me in the warehouse on Hill Street in twenty minutes, or the girl dies.” And with that the video ended. 

There was a beat of silence as they each tried to absorb what had happened. Brainy’s systems seemed to be failing him. He couldn’t seem to calculate any percentages for their success, for Nia dying; all he could feel was white hot terror. 

And what made it worse was that he didn’t even have the right to feel that way. Just days before he had told her that he didn’t want her, left her standing there, crying. 

“What do we do?” Kara asked, numbly. She looked to Alex who looked equally as shaken. 

“Surely we can get Nia back without telling him anything. You go in there, distract him and stall while me and Brainy get Nia, yeah?” But even Alex sounded unsure of the plan, none of them willing to put Nia in any more danger. 

“Brainy, what are the chances of that working?” Kara looked to him, expecting him to be his usual cool, pragmatic self; she needed him to be. He wished he was.

“Erm, I think it should be,” he paused trying to force his brain to apply itself, “54%.” 

“We’ve faced worse odds, and these are actually in our favour.” Alex commented however they all knew what she was thinking. It was okay to face bad odds when a bulletproof Supergirl could fly away at a moment's notice. It was completely different when one of their own was being held hostage by an someone who was clearly unstable and would not hesitate to kill her.

“It’s the best we’ve got without actually telling him your identity.”

“Even if you did there’s still a 60% chance that he would try to kill her anyway, for being half alien.” Brainy added. He’d taken to trying to run as many statistics as he could to distract himself from the fear that threatened to consume him.

“He might even want to kill her more than you, because she’s living proof that humans and aliens can coexist peacefully and even learn to love each other.” He added.

“Then it’s decided. That’s our plan. I think we should go now, try to surprise him a little by being early.” 

They suited up in silence. Brainy found his thoughts drifting to the worst possible scenarios, some of which he knew had a less than 5% chance of happening, but he could not stop them flashing through his mind.

What if he got impatient and killed her before they got there? What if the blow to the head had been enough to cause permanent brain damage? There were too many what if’s bouncing around in his brain. 

They flew to the warehouse and even though it took them less than five minutes Brainy still felt as though it took too long, that something terrible had happened to her in the minutes it took them to get there. 

Alex and Brainy were waiting outside a small fire exit on a different wall to the main entrance where Kara was currently going in. At the sound of Kara’s voice Alex slowly opened the door and they crept in, crouching behind a stack of old palettes. 

Brainy’s eyes zeroed in on Nia who was tied to a chair not ten metres from him. The angry red marks on her cheek and jaw told him that she had been beaten more times than what they had seen on the video.

He made to go to her but Alex grabbed his jacket and yanked him back. “If you go now our cover will be blown. He’s too close to her.” 

So he had to wait and watch Kara slowly make her way towards the man who was standing behind the chair, almost like a bodyguard would. 

“Listen, I can’t tell you who I am until you step away from her. How do I know that you won’t just hurt her once I’ve told you?” She was reasoning but all Brainy could focus on was how irregular Nia’s breathing pattern was and he worried if the bat had broken any ribs. 

Surprisingly the man stepped sideways away from Nia which was slightly confusing as Brainy had thought he was smarter than that, but he wasn’t going to complain. 

Kara flew forward at the same time as Alex ran forward with her stun gun. Brainy on the other hand went straight for Nia. 

His fingers were scrambling with the ropes on her wrist when he heard a resounding crack behind him. He turned to see the man had summoned a lightning bolt and attempted to strike Kara. Brainy swore. Another meta. 

He rushed to untie the ropes, even more eager to get her out of there when he was suddenly flung across the room. 

Dazedly Brainy realised he must have been struck by the lightning, which clearly didn’t have as much voltage as regular lightning, but had managed to stun him nonetheless. 

He forced himself to his feet, a cursory glance reassured him that both Kara and Alex were okay. Alex was muttering furiously into her earpiece, likely calling in the back up teams stationed around the warehouse. 

He threw himself into fighting alongside Kara. The man had almost flawless technique, paired with strength and deadly precision which meant that even if he couldn’t summon lightning at will he would have been a tough opponent. 

But Brainy had rage on his side, all of the terror and emotion he had felt over Nia being taken strengthened his attack and he felt them start to slowly gain an advantage.

Eventually Kara managed to knock him off his feet and before she even had him fully restrained Brainy turned back to Nia. 

There were DEO agents untying her, speaking to her, assessing her injuries and Brainy rushed to her side, practically shoving the agents out of his way and ignoring the shouts of the meta behind him who was screaming obscenities at Supergirl and Dreamer. 

She was stirring and she made a small noise of pain that made Brainy’s heart constrict. Her eyes fluttered open and locked on his. “You’re here.” She breathed, barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry.” 

Then her eyes slid shut again and her head lolled to the side. “No, no, no. Shit! Nia?” He cradled her face in his hands. 

A stretcher was rolled in and he helped them lift her onto it and strap her in. He took her hand, fingers pressing into her wrist to assure himself that she still had a pulse.

The ride back to the DEO was a long one. Her breathing was still uneven and she must have been in severe pain, but not once did she stir which only increased his worry.

When they arrived back at the DEO he was quickly shoved aside as they hurried her off to fully assess the damage and carry out the necessary scans or even surgeries. He tried to follow, claiming that he had extensive medical knowledge, which he did, but a nurse turned and gave him a blank look before proclaiming him too emotionally involved to be of use. 

So that left him in the hallway, pacing a hole in the floor in front of Kara who was sitting staring at the floor seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Alex had been pulled off to fill out a report of what had happened and debrief the field agents. 

Brainy envied her at having a clear productive role to fill. He felt helpless knowing that Nia was only a few doors away, with any number of potentially life threatening injuries, and all he was doing was standing in a hallway. 

Brainy could sense Kara looking at him worriedly but he couldn’t focus on anything except the few words Nia had said to him in the warehouse. 

She had seemed almost surprised to see him and it broke his heart that she had doubted even for a second that he would come for her. As if anything could have stopped him. 

But her apology confused him. She had done literally nothing wrong. Maybe she was apologising for being captured, but somehow it seemed deeper than that to Brainy. As though she was apologising to him in particular not just in general. 

Brainy’s internal clock told him that they waited for exactly 47 minutes, with Alex joining them sometime during minute 33, before a doctor came to see them. 

“Dreamer has been extremely lucky. She has three cracked ribs however they have not punctured anything or splintered. She only has a very mild concussion alongside substantial bruising and a few minor lacerations. All in all she should expect to make a full recovery, and given her Nalturian biology it should not be too lengthy.” 

Brainy huffed a breath of relief. This was the best case scenario given the damage that could have been done. He felt like he could finally breathe freely.

“Can we see her?” Kara asked, voicing the thoughts in Brainy’s head.

“Of course. She has not woken up yet although I expect that she will soon. She needs her rest though, so please be mindful of that.” 

“Don’t worry we will. Thank you so much doctor.” Alex shook his hand but Kara and Brainy were already rushing through the door. 

The sight of Nia however, made him falter. She looked so small and fragile, the white sheets making her look incredibly pale. The bruising practically leapt out at him and half of her face was already turning a garish purple. 

He watched as Kara sat down beside her and took her hand, Alex hovering behind her, but Brainy couldn’t bring himself to move any closer.

He couldn’t help but feel that it was his fault. If he hadn’t broken up with her then she would never have been on patrol today. Last week they had both booked the day off work, planning a day just to themselves, away from the pressures of being a superhero. But he had left her alone, and now she was lying unconscious in the med bay. 

“Come on, Brainy. Sit down.” Alex said. He shook his head at her. He didn’t deserve to sit next to her.

“I can practically hear the guilt, Brainy. It wasn’t your fault; you could never have known that this would happen.” Alex reasoned. 

“But I should have done. The chance of an anti-alien extremist trying to capture a member of our team was 34%, and the chances of that team member being Dreamer was 67%. I should have been better prepared.” 

“It’s not your fault, Brainy. We all should have expected something. We got complacent and we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But right now we need to focus on Nia.”

He hesitated. “What if she doesn’t want to see me?” 

This time it was Kara who spoke. “Brainy, Nia still loves you. I know you broke it off with her and while none of us know why, she still loves you so much. She’ll want you here.” 

Slowly he sat in the chair on the other side of Nia but still kept his distance; clasping his hands together, back ramrod straight. If anything Kara’s words had only increased his guilt. 

She sounded so sure that no matter what pain he had caused her, she would still love him, still want him near. He didn’t deserve that. He had just broken her heart and was going to be working with someone she considered her enemy. He definitely didn’t deserve that.

It wasn’t long before Nia began to stir. Kara leant over to brush her hair back. “Hey sleepyhead.” 

Nia blinked dazedly up at her before she suddenly tensed. “Is everyone okay? Where’s J’onn?” 

Brainy felt a tiny smile appear at that. It was such a Nia thing to be worried about others when she had been taken hostage, beaten and knocked unconscious.

“Everyone’s fine. He’s back at his apartment. How are you feeling?” 

She groaned. “Crappy. Think it would have been better if I’d been hit by a bus.” That earned her a chuckle from both Kara and Alex but Brainy hadn’t made a noise. He was just staring at her in shock. As if he couldn’t believe that she was awake; cracking jokes. 

“Possibly. You’ve got three broken ribs, a mild concussion and some bad bruising but all in all you should be fine. The meta has been detained so all we need now is for you to get back better.” Alex had slipped back into the role of director, calmly relaying information. 

“I haven’t broken my nose? Damn I really thought I had ‘cos it really bloody hurt.” Kara laughed, shaking her head. 

“You feeling okay?”

Nia sighed wearily. “I dreamt of Brainy again. Dreamt that he came to get me. Why can’t I get him out of my head, Kara?” Her voice cracked and she sounded close to tears. Brainy’s heart felt like breaking again. 

“Umm, Nia,” Kara began but Nia had already started talking again. 

“He’s made it obvious that he doesn’t care, that he doesn’t want me and here I am still thinking about him. Even though I’ve literally just been kidnapped by some crazy meta-human person. I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” Kara looked uncomfortable, as if she didn’t quite know what to do. Alex on the hand was trying and failing to stifle her laughter. 

“Nia.” Alex gestured towards him, nodding her head. 

Nia turned to look at him. She jerked slightly in shock when she saw him and then hissed in pain, grabbing at her side. 

She stared at him blankly for a second before groaning and covering her face with her hands. “A little warning would have been nice.” She mumbled. 

Alex laughed outright at that. “We’ll give you two a minute.” Kara said before taking Alex’s hand and practically dragging her from the room. Brainy had a feeling that given half a chance Alex would have stayed, eating popcorn and watching the show. 

There was a beat of silence. “How are you feeling?” Brainy asked, struggling to find something to say that would accurately portray any of the emotions he felt. 

“Aside from totally embarrassed? It only hurts when I breathe so I’m good.” He had missed her sarcasm, and her blunt way of dealing with embarrassment. 

“Listen, Nia.” He began but she stopped him. 

“No, Brainy it’s fine. I’m sorry for what I said to Kara, you don’t have to care about me. I know this is your job and I’m grateful to you for rescuing me but you don’t have to worry about whether or not I’ll get the wrong impression. You were just doing your job. You can go if you want, I’ll be fine.”

He sighed, she had it all backwards. He still cared, had never stopped, but he didn’t know whether he wanted to try to convince her otherwise, if that would only cause her more heartache and confusion. Especially since his main plans for the near future consisted of making deals with Lex Luthor and essentially betraying them all.

“I want you to know that no matter what happened between us, I still care about you, and that will never change. And even though we can’t be together anymore, I will always try to keep you safe, please don't doubt that.” 

“Okay, thank you.” She gave him a soft smile and he remembered what she had said to them back at the warehouse.

“Nia? Back at the warehouse you told me you were sorry. What were you sorry about?” He watched as she cringed slightly, closing her eyes. 

“I was, I mean I still am, sorry for not realising you were unhappy with me. I didn’t realise and I’m sorry.” 

Brainy felt almost close to tears. He knew that she would likely blame herself, but he had hoped that she wouldn’t. It wasn’t fair to her that she thought that she had done something wrong when in reality she had been nothing but perfect. 

“Nia, I can say with 100% certainty that it had nothing to do with you. It’s me, I’ve changed but you did nothing wrong, okay?” 

“The classic ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. Really Brainy? You clearly paid more attention to all those chick flicks than I thought.” 

That nearly prompted a laugh from him however he pushed it down. “I did, however in this instance, what I am saying is true.” 

She was still looking up at him but Brainy could tell that she was slowly fading and would probably be fast asleep within a minute.

“I’m gonna leave you to get some rest.” He said and before he could stop himself he bent over to press his lips to her forehead. “I’ll get Kara to come back in.” 

He was gone before she could reply; before he could do something stupid like cry. 

Brainy took a slow, deep breath. Nia was fine, they had gotten her back and she would be back to normal in a matter of weeks. She didn’t hate him, which was a bonus and though his heart ached to think that she thought he no longer cared, he felt that maybe he had convinced her today that she had done nothing wrong; that of course he still cared.

And he felt he could hold on to the hope that when this was all over, if he succeeded with Lex, that maybe there was a slight possibility of him making it all up to her. If she didn’t hate him. Only time would tell.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being a lot more angsty than I intended but after 5x19 I couldn't think of anything more positive to write and I've had this idea for ages.  
> I welcome any constructive criticism so long as it is polite, and if there are any mistakes please let me know so that I can fix them.  
> Kudos and comments appreciated :)


End file.
